Grain typically is harvested by a combine which reaps the grain, threshes the a hopper. The threshed grain is then ultimately transferred from the combine's hopper to a storage bin. To prevent spoilage, of the grain in the bin, grain must be sufficiently dry prior to storage or immediately dried in the storage bin to prevent spoilage. If the moisture content of freshly harvested grain is too high, then it requires significant energy to dry the same. Obviously it is desirable to harvest at the lowest possible moisture conditions to reduce cost of drying.
Grain dryers such as those disclosed
in U.S. Pat. No. 4,599,809 and U.S. Pat. No. 4,750,273 disclose a method and a system utilizing heat to dry freshly harvested grain to a desired moisture content. However, the process of drying wet grain is expensive because of the energy required to heat the grain, as well as the energy required to operate electrical equipment necessary to circulate and sample the grain. For this reason it is desirable to harvest grain with a moisture content as close as possible to that of the desired storage level and thereby minimize the amount of drying required.
In the past, farmers would visually inspect the fields, and harvest what appeared to be the driest portions of their fields first. However, because the moisture content of the grain in the field can vary greatly, this method is inherently inaccurate. For a more accurate measurement, farmers would harvest a small section and then use a hand held moisture sensor to determine the moisture content of grain in the combine's hopper. This required the farmer to stop the combine, climb out of its cab, climb up to the hopper and obtain a sample full of grain to be put through the moisture sensor. This was not only time consuming but also inaccurate since dry grain could be mixed with that having a higher moisture content and could lead to inaccurate measurements.
Other combine moisture sensors are designed to accumulate a hopper full of grain from an entire test plot and give a moisture reading of the entire hopper. Once again, this does not yield continuous moisture data to the operator of a combine to determine the desirability of harvesting grain.
The present invention solves these and other problems by allowing the operator of the combine to continuously sample the grain for moisture content without leaving the cab.
Further, the moisture sensor could be replaced by a different type of sensor to qualitatively measure other characteristics of grain such as oil content, protein content, test weight, foreign matter, starch content, sugar content and other qualitative measurements. This data may be similarly reported to an operator of a combine continuously during harvesting.